Finally, if you wish to stay for lunch could you please sign-up on the kiosk so we can prepare enough food for everyone. So, please feel free to join us, and anyone is welcome to join us, even folks from other parishes. If you have any questions, just call.

Spiritual Book Club On March 9^th at 6:30 we will discuss from chapter 9 thru the end of the book of Forgotten Among the Lilies by Ronald Rolheiser. Everyone is welcome to join us at any time.

Sunday Evening Prayer - As we did in the Advent/Christmas Season, we will be celebrating Solemn Vespers (Evening Prayer) for each Sunday in Lent and Easter. We will begin at 6:30 each Sunday in the Church with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We will then pray Evening Prayer and conclude with Benediction.

Protecting God's Children - An answer to a common question…Isn't this program just a response to sexual abuse by clergy? Why do I have to spend my time attending a session and reading updates? Anyone who has read a daily newspaper or listened to the news is aware of the prevalence of sexual and other abuse of children in our world. In 2001, nearly three million reports concerning the welfare of approximately five million children were made in the U. S. alone. In two-thirds of these cases, the information reported was sufficient enough to prompt an investigation. As a result of the investigations, approximately 903,000 children were found to be victims of abuse or neglect. Abuse by members of the clergy is only a very small percentage of these cases of abuse. Our concern and awareness of the dangers of abuse to our children must reach beyond our own schools and parishes if we are to be real protectors of children. Preventing abuse by members of clergy is simply not enough if we really want to make a difference in the life of a child. Children & Youth Protection and Advocacy Office, Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown @ 886-8250

PART 3. Confess to a priest?

You then ask: Why must one confess one's sins to a priest and not do so directly to God? Of course, one always addresses God when confessing one's sins. However, that it is also necessary to do so to a priest is something that God himself makes us understand: In sending his Son with our flesh, he shows he wants to encounter us through a direct contact that passes through the signs and language of our human condition.

Just as He came out of Himself for love of us and has come to "touch us" with his flesh, we are also called to come out of ourselves for love of Him and to go with humility and faith to him who can give us pardon in his name with word and gesture. Only the absolution of sins that the priest gives in the sacrament can communicate the interior certainty of having been truly forgiven and received by the Father who is in Heaven, because Christ has entrusted to the ministry of the Church the power to bind and to loose, to exclude and admit in the Covenant community (cf. Matthew 18:17).

He it is who, risen from death, said to the Apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:22-23). Therefore, to go to Confession to a priest is very different from doing so in the secret of one's heart, exposed to so many uncertainties and ambiguities that fill life and history.

You will never know absolutely if what has touched you is the grace of God or your emotion, if you have forgiven yourself or if He has forgiven you in the way He chose. Absolved by the one the Lord has chosen and sent as minister of forgiveness, you will be able to experience the freedom that only God gives and understand why going to Confession is a source of peace.

Parish Council Meeting - Our March 6^th Parish Council meeting discussed the following items: 1) The Education Committee is still working on a video that will help our children understand the Mass. 2) Our Family Life Committee has purchased booklets from the Diocesan Family Life office for parish families to use during Lent/Easter. They are looking for bulletin inserts that will help our children in their understanding of the faith. 3) The Haiti Committee’s Soup & Bread supper raised $600 for Sts. Peter & Paul in Haiti. Thanks to everyone for your generous support. The committee will also put envelopes in the bulletin on Passion Sunday so that any money saved by your Lenten fasting may be given to the missions. 4) The Maintenance Committee will soon paint Handicapped spaces and No Parking spaces in the parking lot. These are the spaces we mentioned earlier in the bulletin that will keep both the circle (for any needed emergency vehicles) and the Baynton Ave entrance clear. 5) The Social Committee made $1,407 on their soup and baked good sale. Their money will fund their many social activities throughout the year. 6) We are truly grateful for the response from the parish regarding stewardship of treasure. Next year we will focus on stewardship of time. 7) Our last Youth Ministry gathering was excellent. Thank to all the adults who helped put it together, and to all those who participated. We will have a youth Mass the first Sunday in April, and we are preparing for our 4^th annual lock-in. 7) Fr. Mark will create an ad hoc committee to discuss possible Sanctuary changes in the future. The next meeting will be Monday, April 17^th at 6:30 in the rectory.

RCIA UPDATE - On Saturday, March 18^th at 5:00 PM Mass and Sunday, March 26^th,and April 2^nd @ 11:00 AM Mass The Elect - Trevor Hoover, Emily Davis, Brianna Davis, Zachary Bulow, Brandon Staymates, and Tyler Mueller The Candidates - Dean Allison, Rae Boggs, Brittany Miller, Donna Hescox-Bauer, Gia Dixon, Coleen Langguth, Melinda McEldowny, Joshua Paul Moore, and Shawn DeArmitt will participate in the RITE OF SCRUTINY - a celebration of the power of Christ over the power of wrong in the world and the lives of the Elect and Candidates.

Reading I Ex 17:3-7
In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?" So Moses cried out to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? a little more and they will stone me!" The LORD answered Moses, "Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink." This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD in our midst or not?"

Responsorial Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the LORD who made us. For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice: "Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works."
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Reading II Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
Brothers and sisters:Since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.But God proves his love for usin that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Gospel Jn 4:5-42
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" -- For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. -- Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come back." The woman answered and said to him, "I do not have a husband." Jesus answered her, "You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true." The woman said to him, "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one speaking with you." At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, "What are you looking for?" or "Why are you talking with her?" The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, "Come see a man who told me everything I have done.Could he possibly be the Christ?" They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." So the disciples said to one another, "Could someone have brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work."
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified,
"He told me everything I have done." When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, "We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world."